01 - overview

Leading a team from ideation to prototype in four weeks

Vita Terra is mock sustainable clothing brand developed as a collaborative academic project. The course focused on design workflow within the graphics industry, and I was selected by the instructor to lead the UX/UI team and produce an prototype of the brand's e-commerce site.
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The project operated on a condensed, agile timeline with cross-functional teams handling branding, typography, color, photography, and UX/UI in parallel. My role sat at the intersection of design and project management.

02 - leadership & process

Managing people, deadlines, and design in parallel

As UX/UI team lead, I was responsible for keeping communication open and consistent, ensuring deliverables were submitted on time, and aligning our work with the other cross-functional teams. This was my first official project management role, and I had to adapt quickly.

To keep the team organized, I created a Notion workspace that functioned as a Kanban board tracking deadlines, notes, and feedback so the team always knew what was done and what was ahead. Regular check-ins via Slack Huddle also kept everyone aligned between weekly presentations.

03 - design

Building an e-commerce experience that feels intentional

Vita Terra's brand identity was built around sustainability and transparency, values that needed to come through in every design decision. The interface needed to feel clean and trustworthy, with a shopping experience that made finding and buying products feel effortless.

One of my ideas—a dynamic call-to-action button overlaid on a hero video on the home page—was selected out of 18 team concepts as the main feature to move forward with. Seeing that idea go from a sketch to a fully realized prototype was one of the most rewarding parts of the project.

04 - Prototype

A functional user flow, from home to cart

The final prototype featured a fully functional call-to-action system and a complete user flow from the home page through to adding a product to the cart. While the visual assets (i.e. logos, typography, color palette, and photography) were produced by the other cross-functional teams, our UX/UI work laid the structural and interactive foundation for the entire site.

05 - Outcome & reflection

Leading a team showed me what I'm capable of

This project showed me that I'm capable in a project management and leadership role. Keeping a team of relative strangers aligned and productive under a tight deadline, while also contributing design work, built my confidence in ways that purely individual projects hadn't.

The course instructor, Cynthia Storm, left feedback that stuck with me: I'd set the tone for the team in a way that was both productive and professional. That's exactly the kind of leader I want to be.